Protesters pull down Silent Sam confederate statue

A crowd of protesters pull down the Confederate statue known as Silent Sam on the campus of the University of North Carolina Monday night, Aug. 20, 2018.

The University chancellor Carol L. Folt called the actions of students and protesters “unlawful and dangerous”.

Top officials at the university similarly are on record stating that the vandalism of the monument is “unacceptable, dangerous, and incomprehensible” and adding that “mob rule and the intentional destruction of public property will not be tolerated.”

State laws in North Carolina make it unlawful to remove a monument memorial or work of art owned by the state without the consent of a state historical commission.

The Silent Sam statue in 2007 where it stood before being pulled down August 20. Photo by Yellowspacehopper at English Wikipedia

The statue was proposed by the Daughters of the Confederacy and approved by the University of North Carolina in 1908 and erected five years later.

At the statues dedication in 1913, former confederate soldier Julian Carr said:

“The present generation… scarcely takes note of what the Confederate soldier meant to the welfare of the Anglo Saxon race during the four years immediately succeeding the war… their courage and steadfastness saved the very life of the Anglo Saxon race in the South.”

Carr went on to tell of how he whipped a a black woman for insulting a white woman near where the statue stood:

“One hundred yards from where we stand, less than ninety days perhaps after my return from Appomattox, I horse whipped a negro wench until her skirts hung in shreds because she had maligned and insulted a Southern lady, and then rushed for protection to these University buildings where was stationed a garrison of 100 Federal soldiers. I performed the pleasing duty in the immediate presence of the entire garrison.”

Confederate statues are seen by protesters and civil rights activists as a sign of white supremacy and intimidation of blacks after the confederacy lost the American civil war.